Interview: Win Me Something, Kyle Lucia Wu, Tin House – Willa Chen’s parents divorced when she was young, remarried, and had more children.
Interview: Win Me Something, Kyle Lucia Wu, Tin House – Willa Chen’s parents divorced when she was young, remarried, and had more children.
My Monticello, Jocelyn Nicole Johnson, Henry Holt & Company – In six stories in her debut collection Johnson studies racism, belonging, a sense of home.
Interview: The story begins on a snowy mountain in Korea where a starving hunter saves a Japanese officer from a tiger. Later, a young girl named Jade is sold by her poor mother to a famous madame with a courtesan school.
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Harper Collins – Ailey Garfield is the descendant of Africans brought to America as slaves plus Native American and white ancestry.
Dear Miss Metropolitan, Carolyn Ferrell, Henry Holt – Three girls, Fern, Gwin and Jesenia, are kidnapped and taken to a ramshackle house where they are held captive for ten years by a man they know as Boss Man.
Song in Ursa Major, Emma Brodie, Knopf – Jane Quinn and her band, The Breakers, are thrown into the spotlight when the headliner is a no-show for their island’s 1969 annual festival.
The Very Nice Box, Laura Blackett & Eve Gleichman, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt – Ava was already devoted to her work designing boxes for a home goods company – but she had Andie. When Ava’s parents and Andie died in a car wreck that she barely survived, she closed down her world even more.
The Conductors, Nicole Glover, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt – When Hetty and Benjy were conductors on the Underground Railroad much of their success was due to their ability to use magic to get the escaping slaves and themselves out of sticky situations.
The Summer Job, Lizzy Dent, G P. Putnam Sons – In her 30s, Elizabeth “Birdy” Finch is at loose ends and doesn’t know where to turn next. Her friend, Heather, has problems of her own, but at least she has a career as a top-notch sommelier.
Raceless, Georgina Lawton, Harper Perennial – Georgina Lawton grew up in England with white parents, a white brother and white everyone else. No one wanted to talk about why she didn’t look like the rest of them.